¡Dallin H. Oaks came to the CCM!
SO. GOOD.
It was
broadcasted to all the missions in Central and South America. It was kind of
neat how they did it. Instead of having a translator up there with him like
normal, all of the Latinos were given headsets to listen to it in Spanish. AND
WE SAT FRONT AND CENTER. I forced my compañera to eat fast and leave dinner
early with me so we could hurry and get to the auditorium. We were walking out
of the Comedor and Hermana McDougal grabbed my arm to stop me. (which has turned
into a normal thing with all the people I bump into) So I turned around and
Elder Oaks was walking in the Comedor! The room was crazy still. He was smiling
so big and waving at everyone.
The first speaker was Elder Whitney Clayton.
Like an apostle of the Lord wasn´t enough, we got to hear a member of the
seventy too! He stressed teaching investigators the importance of keeping
commitments. He said that if investigators don´t keep commitments, they won´t
keep covenants.
The beginning of his talk, Elder Oaks talked
of miracles. He said that out of all the amazing miracles that have ever
happened, the greatest miracle is when a man of the world becomes a man of God.
Another quote I loved from his talk is that the difference between a green
missionary and a mature missionary is that a mature missionary KNOWS he is a
servant of the Lord. The whole thing was just so good! Ok, last thing he said
that I loved- The purpose of the church isn´t to get people baptized, or even
to teach them how to get to the Celestial Kingdom. But that the true purpose of
the church is to show people how to be EXALTED in the Celestial Kingdom!! Whoa!
When the devotion was over we all got to
SHAKE HIS HAND! After my turn to shake hands WITH AN APOSTLE we stepped outside
the doors and I was so excited I jumped around. Hermana McDougal was
entertained by that
Earlier before the devotional Elder Oaks van
drove past our Elders and Elder Simonton told him he was named after him, cause
his name is Dallin. And Elder Oaks told him when he shook hands tonight he
would give him a hug, and he DID!! Everyone was a little jealous. When he came
out the doors every Elder in our zone started hugging Elder Simonton so that
they could claim to have "hugged" Elder Oaks too. We all lined up
outside the doors and sang God Be With You Till We Meet Again in Spanish for
when we came out, but he didn´t end up leaving that way, so that was sad.
Now the rest of the week:
For TRC (where we teach real people) we went
on exchanges and I taught with Hermana Asay. It was hard teaching with someone
new and not given a lot of time to prepare well. One of the people we taught
was a 14 year old girl who didn´t even try to pretend to understand what we
were saying. So that was a wake up to how little we know.
Made some new Latino friends! We play
volleyball with them a lot and I forget my name tag pretty regularly when I
change clothes, so they can´t ever remember my name, so now they all call me
Nueve York! They yell it out whenever they see us in the cafeteria, it´s the
best.
A representative of the MTC director in Salt
Lake sat in on one of our lessons! He came in at the very end of the lesson and
pretended to be our investigators friend and wanted to know what we had been
talking about. So then we summarized the whole 30 minute lesson in the last
five minutes we had left. It was an experience for sure. We found out later our
teacher didn´t know that that was going to happen, he was just as shocked as
us!
The elders do all sorts of crazy things. One
of the elders in our zone, Elder Evans who is a generation above us, even had a
goal to get the whole CCM talked to, and has succeeded more than once! The
first time was our first week here, it happened because he had been teaching
all the newbies the "pass out game", were you lock your knees until you
pass out. Last week they stole a traffic cone and climbed on each other’s
shoulders to stick it on a light post, it stayed there for a super long time!
The past two weeks what has been HUGE in the CCM, is hiding spoons in peoples
bags and pockets. Written on the spoons was " Pass me on, Don´t be
seen" Later, they upped the stakes and wrote on them "Get me to Pres.
Call and you win". There were over 50 spoons circulating the compound.
Then this Sunday before our class with the CCM presidency, President Call
shared a spiritual thought and scripture about being mature and growing up.
After he finished, he was very silent, and just held up a spoon. The reaction
was priceless. The new generations didn´t understand at all. All of the girls
in my district just turned around and we gave our Elders “The Look”. Elder
Evans made his goal. Twice!
That night the devotional was by Sean Cates,
the CCM coordinator. He is a super funny guy, and has a brand new little baby
we get to see in the Comedor a lot! I want to share his opening line. He stated
the 14 Article of Faith:
"We believe in meetings, all that have
been scheduled, all that are now scheduled, and we believe that there will be
yet scheduled many great and important meetings.
We have endured many meetings, and hope to be
able to endure all meetings.
Indeed, we may say that if there is a
meeting, or anything that resembles a meeting or anything that we might
possibly turn into a meeting, we seek after these things. "
Yesterday we
got very dressed up for district pictures and our teacher Hermana Arnoud let us
know that we need to look that good every day and that we don´t put enough
effort into getting ready. We just laughed! I don´t think we will ever let her
live it down that she called us ugly. ;D